Machining

Check out these huge precision machining pictures:

Huge Countersink

Image by tudedude
Old and worn, but still does a great job

Pad Prep

Image by jurvetson
Tom and the rest of the &quotrocket pit crew&quot helped me get it on the rail. (photo by oddwick)

It’s my heaviest rocket project so far. I fiber-glassed the body, added a flight personal computer up in the nose cone, epoxy-coated the fins, and filled the remaining totally free space in the nose and tail cones with expanding two-element foam.

I like the sleek shape and symmetry of the design and style. In the early days of rocketry, I wonder if the comic books had been the design inspiration. It turns out that this shape and weight distribution is unstable, and so I epoxied two pounds of lead buck shot into the tip of the nose cone to hold it from spiraling out of control.

Here I am adjusting the angle to tilt slightly into the wind (to decrease the recovery hike distance).

I have already armed the on-board laptop which will detonate 5 grams of black powder to pop a large parachute when it detects apogee (it has barometric and tilt sensors and an accelerometer it also logs flight data for later Pc download). The motor also has an ejection charge that will detonate 14 seconds right after launch as a redundant precaution.

The final step will be to thread the electric igniter up by means of the center of the solid-AP Aerotech K550 motor. Soon after clipping to the 12V power supply and a continuity test, she is prepared to fly.

We are go flight.